


WWeeds

by Blessedskies_turning



Category: None - Fandom
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-04
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2020-02-09 15:48:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 16,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18641197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blessedskies_turning/pseuds/Blessedskies_turning
Summary: When Jackson Summers dies the small town of Greenhale mourns the loss of one of their prized possessions, and parts of the Summers family is left in shambles with no one to help them pick up the pieces.  But that's not this story. A mystery entity lurks in the woods around their town, terrorizing a few of the most peculiar of it's residents. Virginia Lockheart can see the past.  Charity Roosevelt has dreams that only explain themselves after tragedy's already struck.  And Xavier Loughty can't help but feel other people's hearts break.  Together they start to unpack the mystery that hides in the depths of their woods.





	1. Virginia

**Author's Note:**

> This still needs heavy editing and this story isn't fully outlined yet so anything is subject to change :)

 

 

When she was little Virginia was afraid of the dark though she never knew why. 

In the little farmhouse she called home there were plenty of windows.  They filled the halls and the rooms and the attics. There were so many windows her mother often regarded that she’d board some of them up one day, though she never did. 

 

But at night it still got dark.  

 

The moonlight liked to creep through the window and across her bedroom floor.  Sometimes it would paint shadows on the walls, tricks of the eyes and beasts lurking in the corner waiting to gobble up her heartbeat.  They never did. Still, Virginia did not trust the creatures in her house. So at night she’d pull her blanket up to her ears and wait to fall asleep.

 

Sometimes there would be people in the house that did not belong.  Strange men that crossed the doorways. Or women she’d never seen before pulling cookies out of the oven.  All of them were faded and yellow, like old paper, and they looked as fragile as it too. Not their figures but, as if she moved her hands through the air they would disappear. Whenever she confronted her parents about these people they’d dismiss her, but mostly they never knew what she referred to. 

 

Maybe this was what she was afraid of.  The strange people in her house that wandered about the halls unbothered. 

 

“Where is the dog?” She asked her mother one day.     
  
Her mother usually spent her mornings in the bathroom, applying makeup or twisting her thick dark curls into a ponytail.  She didn’t even look at Virginia. “We don’t have a dog. Did you eat?” 

 

Virginia frowned at her hands, in it they held a worn collar.  It was stained with dirt from where she’d dug it from the earth just the day before. “Yes, Dad made eggs.  But I saw one just last night, it walked past my bedroom door.”

  
The mirror reflected the cracked image of Mrs Lockhart's scrunched face.  Pumping a tube of mascara she flicked her gaze to her daughter. 

 

Many people said they had the same gentle eyes, at least thats what her grandpa said to her every time they drove into town.  “You and your ma have the same eyes. Kind. Those are the best type of eyes.” Virginia never saw it. A better adjective for her mother’s gaze might have been, disappointed, or tired, but never kind. 

 

“Virginia I don’t have time for this.  We don’t have a dog. And throw that thing away, it’s filthy.” 

 

The moon had bathed her bedroom the night before.  It spilled into the hall Virginia could see it from her bed illuminating the walls and the floorboards.  She watched helplessly as the dust motored about the air, and the house settled beneath her. And then came the ticking.  The scratch of nails against wood. The dog moved like a spotty antique movie, a silent picture across the hall and past her room.  She watched, her dreamy mind too dull to remember that they didn’t own a dog or even recognize that it was a dog. 

 

And then it was a gone and Virgina fell quickly into sleep. 

 

Brushing past Virgina, her mother said, “You say the most unbelievable things.  Richard, are you done in there I need to grab my bag.” 

 

The people were still there.  In her closet and in her yard.  And a few weeks after she’d seen the dog she buried the collar and never saw it again.  Like her parents she never talked about them, figuring that they didn’t really matter after all, and eventually they stopped. 

 

-

 

Greenhalelooked much different in the dark.  It was a stranger. 

 

These days Virginia didn’t much care for the dark, though she’d gotten over her fear.  She’d never really gotten why she was so afraid of it, all you needed was a flashlight to light up a shadowed room.  After all she had to get used to the darkness as she walked home in it everyday after work. 

 

Greenhale was a small town.  Hidden in the valley, cupped by trees and guarded by a snowy mountain it was hardly any destination.  Folks usually passed through on hunting trips or other leisure activities making use of the general store and cheap burgers across the street at the diner.  The town was stretched far a wide, as it’s residents were tucked away with miles of land between them, but it still only had a few hundred people. 

 

It was nice, and safe and she didn’t much mind walking through the tar black skies.  The moon did it’s best but the trees along the edge of the road did better at blocking out the light.  Virgina cast her light to and fro. Light caught on all the glittery pieces of glass that marked this span of pavement. 

 

It was a rather saddening sight. 

 

A few weeks back, one of her classmates had pitched his car into the ditch, along with his windows he’d shattered his spine.  There wasn’t much left of Jackson Summers when a passing car found him lying upside down in his car. 

 

There was something about his death that scared Virgina.  Much like her fear for the dark she hardly had a reason for it, other than the uneasy feeling that filled her stomach when she thought about it.  It was awfully close to sadness but the slight twist of her gut let her know it wasn’t that but, discomfort. Maybe it was the countless rumors that surround his death or the brother he left behind, or the fact she had to walk home on the street it happened on everyday, or maybe it was the fact that Jackson had been too perfect. 

 

At school Jackson was the captain of the small football team, and had the nicest car out of the class.  He also always had a friend. Whether another sports player or a girlfriend of his there was always someone to chat with or mingle with. 

 

This was in stark contrast to how Virgina spent her school hours. 

 

She’d never had many friends, especially not in highschool.  A fact she attributed mostly to the fact that the Lockhearts were private people.  The thing was, small town people were nosey, they wanted to know everything about everyone and when they didn’t know it, they made it up.  But if you asked a Lockheart for anything more than their middle name and favorite color they’d never tell you. 

 

Sometimes Virginia wondered how many people knew her favorite color was blue. Probably the same number of people that knew it was because it was the same color of the sky, and that made her happy--which was zero. 

 

But everybody knew Jackson’s favorite color, red. It was on his signature truck, and if you’d asked for more information he would have gladly told you.  

 

Maybe that was what scared her, standing in the glass looking up the stars she wondered about how he died.  On the ground, in the glass like she stood now, completely and utterly alone. There was that saying, “if a tree falls in the middle of an empty wood and no one is around to hear it, does it still make a sound?” But if a boy dies on and empty road and no one is around to see him go, does he still die alone? 

 

Virgina pushed the thought away. 

 

She adjusted her backpack strap and headed off down the road. She wasn’t dying anytime soon, it was the last thing she had to worry about. 

 

Around her the trees bent and leaned towards the ground, and as she made her way further away from the scattering of glass she watched her flashlight scrape across their branches.  It was silent, except for the hush of wind through the leaves and the thick taste of the summer’s heat burning off into a slight chill. Her tennis shoes made little sound apart from the glass underneath them 

 

It had been awhile since she’d felt like this, maybe since she was a kid.  Her body was stretched across the woods she wound her way through now. If she were to thrust her hands into the sky she might have grabbed a handful of stars instead of air. She smiled at the thought. 

 

And then she saw something move. 

  
  
  


It flickered on the edge of her vision, more of a thought then a actual thing.  Jerking her head to the right she shown the flashlight into the bordering trees.  They were filled with black. The light barely penetrated the darkness. 

 

Her heart thumped in her ears. 

 

When she was little she was afraid of the dark, but she wasn’t little anymore.  She let out a heavy sigh and slowly took a step forward. There were animals in these woods no doubt, nothing to be afraid of, so she kepting walking.  She picked up her speed. She tried hard not to think about the strange people in her house.

 

She thought so hard about driving the thought away she failed to see the car idling towards her until she heard the familiar rattle of the engine.  Again casting her flashlight up she lost all her breath. 

 

Through the thick darkness, framed by trees and the star studded skies was a red pickup, coming down the road.  Her feet were dead weight, she paused on the side of the road. The car didn’t stop. Part of her wanted so badly for it to.  Instead it kept on going until it drove right past her. 

 

It was Jackson’s car.  But then again it wasn’t, his car was totaled in some junk yard, and Jackson was in the ground somewhere. 

 

She itched something awful. 

 

She knew what this was, the strange people had come back, but this time it was Jackson and his not so strange car.  It moved like jerky animation, and a golden hue lay over the red sheen of his car. Quickly she jerked into action. Her heels gripped cement and the flashlight threw shattered beams of light through the trees as she tore towards the escaping car. 

 

Maybe she could stop him, maybe she could get him to pull his car over safely and miss the skittish deer.  She shouted his name, once, twice three times. He didn’t stop. Thrusting her hand out she made a desperate attempt to grab his car.  He was too far away but she reached anyways. 

 

And then he was gone. 

 

Disappearing like the flick of a switch Virginia fell forward, tumbling on the ground and rolling. When she finally came to stop she pressed her eyes closed and let out a deep breath.  She tried to get her thoughts back together. Raw shame filled her lungs. Why had she done that? She knew Jackson was dead, all the same she’d known her mother didn’t own a dog. But she asked anyways.  But she chased after it anyways. She lay there for a long time, the pavement pressing up against her back. 

 

Jackson Summers had been a nice boy, but he was haunting her now. 

 

Something moved again.  She felt the rustle of the leaves in her bones and in her heart and in her head. This was real, not one of those people.  She went rigid, backing away from the dense wood to her right and scuffling into the middle of the road. 

 

Her blood burst through her veins.  She thought about home, and how far the walk was, could she run it?

 

A paw stepped out into her light, breaking through the thick undergrowth. It was the size of a saucer, the ones they sold in the antique store.  For a brief moment Virginia almost ran but the she stopped, thinking about the dog and the collar she’d buried in her backyard. 

 

Eyes stared back at her, small yellow moons in the dark. They were at eye level with each other, Virginia felt the burn of it’s gaze and the thick fear start to choke her throat. 

Her breath was loud in her ears. 

 

She shuffled back on her hands and feet and the creature, stepped forwards, it was a dance Virginia didn’t know she was performing until the thing had made its way fully onto the road.  She used her flashlight against the thing. It was black, and sleek. It’s coat shimmered in the artificial light. Virginia waited for it to move, but it just watched her. 

 

It was undeniably feline. 

 

And it was breathtakingly large. 

 

There was an empty moment where the two looked at each other, where Virginia’s thoughts were suddenly very far away from where they had just been and she wanted desperately to itch the ache in her palms.  Her thoughts were sharp and painful on the dangerous creature before her. She was almost sure if it opened its mouth it would be full of teeth as big as her fingers.

 

In the dark she said, “You’re not real.” 

And then it was gone.


	2. Chapter 2

There was something about the set of Charity Roosevelt’s eyebrow that always unsettled people.  
She lived in the tiny town of Greenhale. Where people were overpopulated by cows and the cows by trees. There wasn’t much interesting about the place, but it was quiet, which Charity enjoyed. In the cites you always had crime and shootings, and the homeless. Out here, you had bad attitudes and grumpy old people. It was the best of the worst.

For many years Charity had tried to figure out why so many people disliked her. Young and old, they moved around her, planets rotating dispassionately around their sun. When she was six she had to play by herself at the Easter party at her church. When she was ten her only friends stopped talking to her and when Charity had asked why she’d been told it was because she was mean.  
“I’m not mean.” Charity said, her eyebrows knitting together. “I’m just honest.”

When she was fourteen she’d stood in her mirror, fingers tracing the lines of her face, and wondered. What made her so unlikable? She liked herself. She was pretty, long blond hair and fierce blue eyes, a mouth that made someone wonder.

Eventually she came to the conclusion that it was her eyebrows. They were dark and strong, drawn together with an invisible string. They made her look like she was always intently studying something. But to someone's eye they could be disturbing, off putting, intimidating. Charity didn’t know why but that was the only answer she could come up with. Anyways she didn’t care.

Truth was everyone was alone. Her parents hated each other, people at school hated each other, strangers hated each other. Everywhere you looked people were alone, sometimes it didn’t look like, but they were just better at hiding it. The way Charity saw it, you came into this world alone, you lived it alone, and you left it alone. It was a waste of her efforts to change that.

Now she was still living in the wretched town, two hours away from the horrible city, sitting in a church, listing to the pastor drone on through his sermon. She hated church. It was a building made of lies and Charity Roosevelt hated lies. Most of all she hated false hope. And in this world that’s all church was good for. The stain glass windows painted with naked angel babies, pews full of grumpy and stubborn straight laced people, hours spent in the uncomfortable summer heat, in an itchy white dress listening to a man you barely know tell you tales about god and miracles. Men didn’t come back to life. And if there was a god why was Roosevelt stuck watching re-run like news of people being shot and starving dogs?

God wasn’t real and she hated them for trying to make her believe he was.

Currently her mother was picking at the wood on the pew. The building was filled with hushed movements and Father Downs boxy voice. Charity leaned her elbow against the edge of the bench and watched the light come through the windows. Colored sun split through the tall building and warmed her bare toes. She was wearing flip flops, decidedly not church attire, but comfortable and stylish when paired with her—also too short for church—yellow sundress and paisley two piece.

It had been a fight this morning with her mother, but like always Sarah Roosevelt had given up after Charity had exclaimed she didn’t care. Which was the truth. Plus her father wasn’t there to back her up so she sighed and started the car. Charity Roosevelt's father was always gone on work trips. He was a trucker, driving across the country with no company other than his gas pedal.

Anyway, the frowns the Summers family was wearing wasn’t really church attire either. Although their reasons for it were completely valid.  
Charity caught an eyeful of Dalton Summers. Dalton was an eyesore at best and a tragedy at worst. A few weeks back Jackson Summers, Dalton’s brother and best friend, had gotten in a car accident, and died, leaving Dalton a shred of the boy he used to be.

Point proven.

The school had put up signs and blocked off school time for assemblies, and everybody had gossiped and the Summers family had buried their son in the ground. For the most part Charity had appreciated the Summers family. Everything about them made sense, bright futures, blinding smiles, sunny personalities and warm attitudes. The Summers fit into small town life like Roosevelt fit into her favorite pair of jeans.

Now the family was not so much complete. Dalton sat with his father and mother. Charity could see thier neatly parted hair and fine clothes, even through loss the Summers family looked like clear skies. Except for Dalton. He was slumped in the pew, mouth wry, eyes distant and hollowed out. Even his trademarked golden hair was mussed and greasy. He looked like the ghost of the person that Roosevelt had seen rallying in the school halls.

In her mind Charity scoffed. 

No god would take a family like the Summers and turn them into that.

After Church, when Father Downs had finished with a closing statement about the after life and hope and other stupid notions, and after the Summers family had piled into their truck and cars, Charity waited outside. While her mother made the rounds of after service pleasantries Charity leaned against the car and watched the crowd file out of the building and across the dusty gravel parking lot.

The summer sun was intense and hot above her, and the sky was blue and wide. Charity caught a few irritable glance from the holiest of church goers at her outfit. She glared back.

It wasn’t that she didn’t believe in otherness. She’d had dreams not even the hippies in town would understand, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that those things didn’t belong to someone, or something. There was no huge hand of god that controlled this world.  
They were all just a bunch of people trying to survive together.

Across the lot, and across the roughly paved two lane street and nestled between a few other ancient buildings was Ms. Evans antique store and sweets shop. It was the most interesting thing in town. A two story house, with the lower part converted into the stuffed full store it was now. There were great big windows, vintage furniture, stuffed dolls, and sign that said “welcome” in whispy blue font that irritated Charity.

She’d only been in there a few times. Her mom liked to browse the shelves and fill the hole in her heart with trinkets. 

With a sigh Charity pushed off the car. Her mom was still mingling with the other moms, little kids swarming the road around them. “I’m gonna go get something to eat.” She said half heartedly.  
Her mom turned around. She smelled like roses and her lips were dressed in some respectful color. “Where?” The ladies she had been chatting with sent Roosevelt a unapproving look, their eyes catching on her dusty toes.

“Evans.”

“Okay.”

Charity made her way across the road.

Inside a cheery bell welcomed her and the sun poured through the wide windows. The floors creaked as Charty made her way through the towers and shelves and piles and stacks of old things to the back, where the large vintage counter stood. The summer heat pushed its way into the building, and a tired standing fan did it’s best to chase it away.

There was an assortment of baked goodies, ice cream choices and their toppings. Sitting on a stool behind the register was a boy. He looked up when Charity made her way over.

He said, “Sup.”

Charity held down a smile. He had brown hair and small thin lips, to top if off he was wearing a hawaiian shirt. “Hi.” Charity replied, pressing her fingers against the glass. There were tons of flavors, chocolate, vanilla, some caramel pecan flavor, even a black licorice one she wasn’t too keen on trying.

“Tough decision.”

“Huh?”

The boy smiled back at her. “The ice cream flavors. Tough to make a choice.” He looked familiar, she’d probably seen him at school or something, he appeared her age. His cheeks were as if he was holding in his breath, but he had an innocent goofy air about him. When she didn’t return his smile his didn’t waver. That struck Charity as odd, most people stuttered when confronted by her eyebrows. “I’m Max.”

She sent him a tense press of her lips. “Charity.”

“So,” Max was still smiling, “what will it be, sugar or waffle?”

“Waffle, and two scoops of the bubble gum.”

“Nice!” Max exclaimed, which also seemed peculiar to her. His enthusiasm was almost misplaced. However presented with his joyful brown eyes it wasn’t entirely off putting. Pushing back the glass door Max reached in and scooped up the blue ice cream. He was wearing a woven bracelet with a charm hanging off it. Through the glass Charity tried to study it. There was something familiar in the stone. Finally Max straightened and plopped the last of her scoop into the cone. He handed it off over the counter with a grin.

Charity took it. “What’s that on your bracelet?”

Max moved to the register, he jammed a few keys before answering. Charity moved with him. “It’s a pentagram.”

Everything made more sense. “So, you’re one of the hippies.”

Looking up from the register Max sent Charity a look. One usually reserved for offense, but on him it looked a little more like wonder. “Look who’s talking.” He appraised her outfit.

She shifted in her flip flops. “I am not a hippy.”

“Neither am I. That’ll be four fifty” Max paused, still wearing a smile. “You come from the church?’

Charity drew out the twenty in her pocket and handed it over the glass. “Sadly.”

His eyebrows shot up, and a laugh bubbled up. Something about this itched at Charity like she might hate him for it, but another part of her said to wait for what he had to say. “I like you Charity. What’s your last name?” With that he shoved the register close and handed off her change.

She stopped, and looked up at Max’s expression for something. She didn’t know what she was looking for but whatever it was wasn’t there. She licked her ice cream, shot Max a look and turned around. “Thanks for the ice cream Max.”

Behind her Max laughed, a bubbling sound that suited soda better than the room. “No problem Charity Roosevelt.”

She hadn’t told him her last name, but she didn’t care.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I wanted the past to go away, I wanted to  
> leave it, like a country; I wanted my  
> life to close, and open, like a hinge; like a  
> wing, like the part of a song where it falls down over the rocks: an explosion, a discovery:  
> I wanted to hurry into the work of my life  
> I wanted to know, whoever I was, I was alive for a little while  
> -Mary Oliver

Dalton was looking.  

In Greenhale there weren’t many things to find.  Then again that was the point of looking right, to unearth something unheard of before.  

The voice in the phone said, “How are you feeling?” 

Dalton took his time to answer. While he thought of one he watched the woods outside his car. 

The woods that surrounded Greenhale were less green and more golden.  They held onto the sun like a fly trap, everything in and nothing out.  The trunks, the branches and the leaf litter were all caressed by the gentle warmth of the star that hung overhead. 

Finally he muttered.  “No better than the rest of the days we’ve talked.”  Softly, he rapped his knuckles against the glass of his truck and bit down on his lip.  Hard. 

Doctor Marks took a gulp of silence.  The counselor was more of a formality given to him by his parents than any assistance.  

Currently Dalton Summers was sitting in the damp interior of his car, which was parked on a dead ended gravel road.  He faced the wood. The sunlight danced across everything, warming the interior and Dalton’s hand where it rested on the steering wheel. 

“I just want to forget him, Doctor Marks.” For a second Dalton stumbled over his words, and then he cleared his throat. “I-I wish he’d go away.” 

“What do you mean, ‘go away’?” 

“Sometimes it’s like he, um- like when he died he stopped existing in the real world and started existing inside my brain.  Like before when he was still alive he existed like anything else, but now that he’s gone it’s all I can think about.” Dalton’s throat itched. “Sometimes I wish he never existed so I wouldn’t have to feel this way.” 

There were two types of silences when you talked to your counselor, one where they were waiting for you to talk or the second when they were letting you sit with what you had just said.  This next moment was the ladder, and it made Dalton duck his head and breathe loud against his steering wheel. 

Three weeks and he still missed his brother like he missed the sun in winter.  His fingers itched. His chest ached and sometimes at night, when the frogs filled the air with noise and his thoughts were wildfires across the mountains that surrounded Greenhale that ache came out in a sob. 

_ “Your brother. He’s...well he’s died.”  _

_ I am alone now,  _ _ Dalton thought.  And then came the hurt.  _

That, that one moment that never ended, of being suspended by his toes and hung out to dry.  He was wrinkled now, with grief and in pain and though Doctor Marks tried his best the only thing Dalton wanted now was to forget about his brother. 

“He’s gone now, so why can’t I forget about him?”

“I doesn’t work that way.” Marks said through the phone stern and orderly.

Dalton brushed his warning off, “It’s seems simple enough to me.” 


	4. Xavier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alone or not alone? That is the question.

Xavier did two things the first week after his junior year in high school.  

The first thing was break up with his girlfriend.  Lily was on the cross country team and had long skinny legs she’d wrap around him at night.  Her friends always looked like her and she was always wearing new clothes. Her parents owned a sleek downtown apartment, though they had been struggling to hold onto it in the recent months as her father lost his job and her mother was having medical issues. 

“Anyways the department told him that it would be awhile before he got a raise,”  Xavier was listening to her talk about her dad’s new job at a medical clinic. A small white fan coughed a breeze over them as they sprawled over his unmade bed, their clothes lay across the tiny floor space he had in his bedroom.  Xavier watched the birds and the blue summer skies as she said, “And then my mom told me the doctors don’t think she’s going to get any better. But I think that’s just her being negative. You know how she is with this stuff, always saying to most depressing stuff you know?  Like the other day, I said to her that when she got better we’d go on a road trip to see the cousins but she just brushed me off and got all upset. Sometimes I think she’s trying to die.” 

Lily’s family always took road trips down to see their distant family, but since everything started happening they hadn’t been able too.  Lily’s mom always loved seeing her sister and her kids, and hadn’t been faring well with not getting to visit. 

Xavier watched a bird land on the telephone pole outside his window.  Slowly it marched itself across the wire and then stopped and ruffled his feathers. It was small and brown, the kind that had to compete with the larger pigeons for food down on the street.  Soon a whole line of the little birds came over, each doing the same dance until sitting down next to the other. 

“Zave.” 

Lilly was looking at him, her eyes big and blue.   
“What?” 

“Are you okay, you seem, I don’t know.  Weird.” She reached over and ran her hand over his shoulder, it was warm and slightly damp. 

Xavier swallowed hard and looked back at the birds. “I’m fine.” Once he’d stepped out of the shower, arms and chest damp, the room filled with a humid fog.  His mother would need the bathroom when she got home, which would be in a few minutes but he savored the precious moments in front of the mirror. He examined his face.  Round brown eyes, dark lashes Lily always scoffed at and his mother used to bat her own against, his curls hung low over his forehead, heavy with the water. He wasn’t looking at his face, but rather past it.   
“That is you.” He whispered into the mirror.  He could barely hear the words over the drip of his draining shower but he saw the cloud they made in the mirror all the same. He practiced saying his name, watching the shape of it on his lips, the curl of his tongue right as he said “Loughty.” and then he did it again.  

Each vowel sent a shiver down his back, a prick into his eyes, a tingle into his palms. 

“Xavier, are you even listening to me?”  Beside him, Lily sat up, the sheet she used to wrapped around her falling to expose more and more. 

He wasn’t looking, until finally he forced his eyes over to her. “Sorry, what did you say?’ 

She scoffed.  The shimmer of anger pushing up in her blood, the hair on Xavier’s arms went stiff.  

“I’m sorry, I’m just really tired.  Could you say it again? I’m listening I promise.” 

She took a second to interrogate him with her stare.  _ Was he really paying attention?  Why does he  _

_ always do that?  _ “Is everything alright with your dad?  I know your mom said he’d been a little upset lately, have you talked to him?” 

He sat up and scrubbed his eyes.  Through his fingers he said, a little more irritable than he hoped, “My dad is fucking fine.  Him and mom are always having problems.”

“Ookay…” Her sentence hung in the air.  It was in the shape of a question,  _ What is your  _

_ problem?   _ “What’s going on Xavier? Something is wrong and I don’t know why but you won’t tell me.” She sat up and scuffled over the mattress and blankets to him.  Her hands circled around his shoulders joining together by his chest, he felt her warm chest press against his back, the sticky heat of summer festered under his skin.  “Tell me.” 

And then he said, “I don’t know.” He put his face in his hands and said “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.” 

There was a long moment where is was just her breath in his ear and the hum beneath his chest 

where he thought there ought to be a heartbeat.

And then he said, “I think I want to break up.” 

“What?” 

The fan blew a breeze over Xavier’s back.  He turned to look at her, her face was awash with 

emotion, all of them exploding and imploding at once and her eyes going red.   _ Please don't cry.  Don’t cry.  _ “I just think that-” 

She held her hand out, she was far away from him now, the other side of the bed.  Xavier let out a breath. “We just finished having sex, and I’m telling you that i’m going to have to get a job to keep my house and that my mother is probably suicidal and you decide it’s the time to tell me you want to break up?  What kind of fucked up shit is that?” 

“Lily, I just need space.  I think.” 

“Space?”  She wasn’t sad, she was angry.  It was bleeding out of her, through her skin and onto 

the sheets, Xavier’s hand was coated with it. “This isn’t some stupid rom-com Zave, i’m your girlfriend, and frankly don’t you think you have enough space.  Hell, you just sat here and said nothing, that conversation might have well been me just talking to myself. Hello! My name is Lily, nice to meet you too Lily, that’s weird both of our lives are falling apart do you want to see if our boyfriend of two years gives a fuck?” 

“Lily,”  He swallowed. “I love you I do but-” 

“Then why do you want to be away from me?” 

“I just, something is wrong, and something has been wrong for a long time and I need to be able 

to fix it.  And I need to do that, alone.” 

She looked at him, her eyes flicked back and forth, back and forth, back and- “You’re a dick.” Then she was up, grabbing her clothes and her shoes.  

Xavier scrambled off the bed, “Lily, listen, listen to me.” 

She was throwing on her shirt, her shoes in hand, keys already jingling in hand.  “Tell me why you want to break up Zave. Because ‘space’ isn’t a reason.” Xavier felt her furrowed brow burrow under his skin and thought,  _ I am sad now _ .

“But it  _ is _ Lily.” 

It was. 

He was trapped here. Suffocating in the narrow streets of his city, his only air the glimpses of sky 

between the sky scrapers.  There had been a moment in class, right before summer began, when his English teach asked them all to write a two page essay about who they had become by the end of their junior year.  It was meant to address themselves when they were a senior, to open standing in a cap and gown and waiting for their name to be called. 

Xavier’s paper wrote: Did you find him? 

Between his little sister, his girlfriend, his pack of friends, his distant father and hardworking mother, who was Xavier? Why was his mirror a window into his family, where was his own reflection?

Xavier said, “Lily I don’t know who I am supposed to be anymore.” 

Lily said nothing.  He felt her, the hand she reached out with burned.  He watched the floor. The 

cream colored carpet against his dark bare feet, Lily’s across from his were dainty and painted a pink color.  Her and her mom got monthly pedicures. Xavier wondered if that would continue after her father lost his job. 

“So,” He began shakily, his words were wooden blocks he’d played with as a child, coming up and out of his mouth to fall to the floor with a bang. “I need time, alone, to-to find it.” 

Lily let out an exasperated sigh.  There was a twisting deep in Xavier’s heart, a towel being wrung out over a sink. Xavier touched his cheek feeling a tear fall from his eye. 

His fingers came back dry. 

He didn’t want to cry. 

Lily’s mascara was streaked across her face.  Water fell down from her eyes like a fountain.  Xavier’s heart seized and he felt her swell. They were done, over finished.  And she wouldn’t get these lazy days with him, or late nights, or those hours in class, laughing giggling and talking.  She wouldn’t get to slot herself against him and cry and it hurt. 

She was blue, blue blue.  And all Xavier could think was,  _ hurt. It hurts so bad.  _  There were two hearts breaking inside his chest, and he didn’t have enough room in his ribs to fill all the sorrow.  

“Goodbye, Zave.” 

-

  


That night his mom returned home from work.  There was the signature clink of her keys in the bowl by the front door, and then the sound of her footsteps down the hall as she made her way into his room.  She pushed open the door and smiled. Xavier was sitting on the bed, reading. 

He’d been stuck on the same page for over an hour, his mind wandering to thoughts far away.  

“Hey bud.” She came to sit next to him, leaning over his shoulder to look at his book and sigh in his ear.  Her tight dark curls tickled her ear. She’s had a bad day at work, probably something about the young trouble making employees that refused to do their work. Or may her ridiculous boss. “How was your day?” 

“Alright.” 

“That’s good to hear.”  She threw herself back on his bed.  He’d made it in the hours it had taken  her to get home.  Now the sun was low in the sky, and the window let in bits of light across his room, the fan still wheezed away. Little had changed.  “My day was damn awful. Ian, told Chad that I haven’t been stocking frozen correctly and I got a I giant lecture from him. But that’s not even my position, I’m on produce, and anyway, Ian is the one that isn’t doing frozen.  You know what he does all day? Drinks coffee and talks to the customers. I can’t even-” 

“I broke up with Lily.” 

His mom paused. He put the book down. 

The second thing he did that week, was run away. 

The fan wheezed and he said, “I broke up with lily and I am leaving, tomorrow.” 

She sat up now, her eyes searching for something, her mom instincts flooding to the front of her brain. 

“I don’t know where I am going but I am taking the car.  I’ll be back for my birthday.” 


	6. Light Upon the Lake

Charity Roosevelt was dreaming. 

If her father was there he would have been ashamed.  If her mother were there, she would have been filled with fear.  But Charity Roosevelt was neither. Shame did not fit her, and she was too curious to let fear control her. So instead she stood in the middle of the water alone and watchful.     


The air was warm and sticky, but the water in the lake lapped at her limbs, her skin, her thin bathing suit.  The moon hung above her a jewel in the sky. The stars were always bright in Greenhouse—apart from the one summer wildfires washed over the neighboring hills clouding the skies—and always filled Charity with a sense of aching.  Her heart lurched towards the sky, but that wasn’t what she had come for. 

No. 

Something touched her arm.  It was a trailing finger, weary and hesitant.  It was filled with the guilt of her father and the dread of her mother.  It ran down the length of her exposed back, soft and gentle and for a moment Charity closed her eyes and wondered. 

Whirling around Charity tried to confront the person, but all she got was an eye full of the dark bank and surrounding woods.  The water swooshed as she faced towards the lake again. She had never seen this body of water before, it was small and strange.  She couldn’t quiet make out the edges of the water or surrounding mountains in the dark but she did see that in the middle of the cupped lake there was a dock. Charity wanted to swim to it but she couldn’t bring herself to. Her feet were frozen in the pebbly bottom of the water. 

            She listened to the soft murder of the water around her, and examined the sensation of her toes buried in the silmey rocks. 

And then a voice said, “Come find me.” It was bodiless, coming from everywhere and nowhere at once. 

Something behind her rustled. 

Rotating back to look at the bank she saw—no felt—something, someone dive into the deep trees bordering the small lake.  The only clue was the flash of a foot disappearing into the darkness. 

_ Find me _ . 

Roosevelt went to find it. 

She went barefoot through the woods, the moonlight shafting down through the leafy underbrush as she tore through the branches.  She was flying. Over downed trees, and past claw like leaves, the smell of a cooling summer night clouding her lungs as she chased this thing through the night.  There came a joyous feeling in her heart, light and sharp at the same time. She could barely laugh through her heaving lungs.

She didn’t believe it. 

_ Find it. Find it. Find it. Find it. _

__ _ Find me. _

__ The trees said. 

No, it was the ground, the moon the stars, the birds resting in their perches, the mosquitos, the lightning bugs, chanting, calling, rumbling at her to find  _ it. _

She knew where it was. 

She knew. 

Chaity Roosevelt barreled through the dark wood, her chest a ball of light and her hair wet and streaky behind her. She caught it. It.  Coming to a clearing she slowed, knowing she’d found the thing. This thing, she had found it, and the world sang in her ear, and the moon was so bright and she didn’t know what it was but she stood in the woods, breathless and laughing. 

She woke up. 

In her bed she stayed, her skin hot and damp from the summer sun.  The wind drew in, ruffling the linen curtains, and then it drew out, along with it the brightness filling her chest.    


She had caught it, but it was meant to stay in her dreams. 


	7. A Hillbilly Friendship: Truck Brothers

Once, when they were just boys, Dalton and Jackson Summers climbed into their tree house together. 

That was the kind of childhood they had, one that required a tree house.  It changed over the years along with them as they grew taller and taller, the walls were plastered with posters from their favorite cartoon and then a few years their favorite football players. But on this day they were drawings from the dinner table, and images of the solar system.  They were almost exactly a year apart in age, and exactly 0 inches apart emotionally. 

Leaning out the hole-in-the-wall window Jackson said, “One day, when I'm old, I’ll have a bright red truck.” His eyes glittered in the late sunset.  The woods that backed their green sloping yard were painted golden. 

Dalton, without missing a beat, replied, “And I’ll have a silver one.” 

“And we’ll race them.” 

“Down main street.” 

“Yeah.”

“We’ll be Truck Brothers.” Dalton said with a smile, he could already see it.  The clouds in their eyes turned into cars blowing up puffs of smoke, their father’s grill was the burning of rubber, the window sill was a steering wheel in their hands. 

And Jackson turned and said, “We already are, Truck Brothers.” 

Dalton bumped shoulders with him, some unspoken promise. And then the clouds raced across the skies and Jackson made an engine sound with his lips and Dalton tipped his head back and laughed and laughed, and never stopped laughing. 

Dalton remembered the day they got the matching trucks, Jackson had waited for him to be old  enough to get his license to buy the cars. And in the late fall when Dalton turned sixteen and passed his test they took a picture in the car lot.  

Both cars were lined up, and both brothers hung out their own windows the signature Summers’ smile worn like the gleam on the silver and red paint. 

“Truck Brothers.” Jackson cheer as they peeled out of the lot, Dalton was laughing.

Dalton remembered the day they took that picture, and everyone after.


	8. Do You Believe in Ghosts?

It was a slow day at the shop. 

Virginia worked a morning shift and Max was going to come in the afternoon to help her rearrange the store a bit.  Ms Evans always took car in decorating it in a away where you never noticed how cluttered the store actually was, that and it always looked different so customers always enjoyed repeat visits.  Typically Ms. Evans would do the bossing around while one of the two other employees would move the pieces around. However on this day she was doing some business out of town so she left it up to Max and Virginia to reconfigure the store, along with a note detailing specific tasks. 

Max was a strange creature, wild and kind and unlike most people that lived in the small valley. 

Unlike some of the towns folk Virginia didn’t much mind his company.  He was sprightly, with choppy brown hair and a smile that made you want to giggle.   He was always donning some odd piece of clothing, flamingo socks you could see through his shoes, a shirt that read “Kachiga!”, or a pair of jeans with flowers painted on the cuffs.  Virginia never questioned his sense of style, he fit in with the store just as Ms. Evan did. She had to admit she paled in comparison to the both of them. Her wardrobe was mostly comprised of solid colored crew necks and plain jeans, her hair was usually pulled into a neat ponytail, though the ends curled wildly out the back.

On occasion Ms. Evans would bring vintage dresses into the store. Most of them were from the 60’s, her favorite era.  Virginia would touch them; a small hidden part of her could imagine what it would be like to slip them on. She would twirl in the mirror and look at her dark skin against the faded orange fabric, slightly scratchy but she savored the thoughts. 

Sometimes Virginia’s life had been made of dreams and hope.  Sometimes she thought it was all she had.

However Max’s wasn’t, a slice of Virginia envied him.  The people that lived in Greenhale  were more often standoffish to Max than they were friendly.  He was one of those hippies, the heathens that would flock the general store and the diner and cause nothing but problems.  The elderly spat at them, the church women glared and the sheriff tended to patrol town more whenever they showed up. Max though, Max was unique in the way that he lived in the town.  The others all stayed in bigger, more liberal cities. He lived with his moms, in the woods the circled the town. According to the rumors—there were a lot—their house was old and dirty and they had a flock of chickens they used for sacrifices, and on full moons they would tear through the woods howling obscenities and unholy things. 

But those were rumors, and Virginia thought Max was nice. 

He was always talking about the fairies, and he’d say things like, “You’re a goddess” or “Divine Feminine would you please get me the wood glue?” and he was also Virginia’s only hope. 

In Greenhale, if you didn’t attend church, you were either Max, or one of the few families that believed in nothing.  And Virginia felt she fell under none of those two labels though he’s never seen her mother step foot in a church.  

She believed in ghosts and possibly fairies but her family didn’t.  And after what had happened a few nights ago she needed answers. 

The Summers family filled her thoughts, the dark creature that approached her ran through them, around them, in them.  It had been three days since then, and three days since she had a decent sleep. Her mind was a storm of possibilities.  

Max greeted her as he entered the shop, “Yo!” 

Virginia was standing behind the counter, drawing on the notepad that sat there. She didn’t look up from her paper as he made his way through the isle to her, but she pressed on a smile all the same. “Hey.” She thought about what she could ask, say.  Max was open about these things, he wouldn’t mind if she asked about them. Still.

He approached, ceaseless smile on his face, wearing a rubber duckie button up. She flipped the  notepad closed.  He was slightly taller than her, and his brown eyes twinkled at her. “Ready?” 

“Yeah.” 

They spent the next half hour working on displays and such, Virginia listing off what exactly Ms. 

Evans wanted where and how and Max singing replies.  Max worked cheerfully, music played from a heavy boom box in the back, and they moved about the store making clouds of dust in the space and turning it into something new.     


And then Virginia said, “Max?”  

“Yes.” 

“You’re like,” she paused.  At school, people usually used curses to explain him and his folk, witch was the closest thing to a nice word for him.  She didn’t want to mess this up. “a witch?” 

He smiled at her. He was standing below her as she handed him stacks of books off a shelf.  “Yes, Virginia Lockheart, I am.” 

Nodding, she handed him another set of books.  He took it without so much of a judgmental glance. That was good, she thought, so she asked, “What exactly do you believe in?” 

And Max, his voice more pleasant that she was expecting. “A lot.” 

Virginia almost laughed at that.  She felt comforted by it. There was a lot that Virginia believed in too, or rather, hoped for.  She thought that was a better word for it. Hoped. Belif was holding something as truth, but with what little Virginia had seen of the world she didn’t know if she could call it a belief.  She always hoped though. Hoped that the people she saw as a kid weren’t just her tired eyes playing tricks, hoped that every time her mother or brother told her she was just being silly when she spoke about the things that they were wrong. 

He paused, holding a book in his hands, his eyes rested on the shelf in front of him but there was a sense of thoughtfulness that crossed over his expression.  His eyebrows drew together ever so slightly and the edge of his mouth quirked. It looked as if he was pulling the answer from somewhere deep. “I believe that as long as you believe it, anything is real.  I believe that we're not alone in this universe or on this planet.” He looked up at her, face neutralizing a tad. “That there are many things I can’t name but they’re still real.” 

She gave him a heavy book, he set it in that stack that had been building up. 

“Why do you ask?” 

The sun broke through the front windows, and spilled over the worn hardwood. There were many reasons she had asked. Jackson.  The animal. The people in her house. Because she desperately wanted to know what else was out there. “No reason. What about ghosts?”  Her mother's words echoed in her head,  _ You say the most ridiculous things. _

“What about them?” 

“Do you believe, do you believe in ghosts?” 

He laughed. 

“I’m sorry, don’t answer that.” She shook her head and looked back to the shelf. “Stupid question.” 

“No, no. No.”  Max spoke between dispersing chuckles, “Virginia, trust me, I have heard far more stupid questions than ones about ghosts.   But yeah. I do believe in ghosts.” His eyes almost shimmered with delight. 

When she said nothing he leaned in and whispered, as if not to disturb the dust on the shelves, “Did you know there is one here? In the store.”

She didn’t get to answer him as the door to the shop opened and the bell above rang out in the shop.  Both Virginia and Max swiveled to examine the front entrance. The light cut around the figure, and the person stood in the middle of the shop, head tilting to search the shelves and rafters of the store. It was Dalton Summers.  His golden hair and angular nose a thumbprint in Virginia’s mind. 

Do you believe in ghosts?

That night on the road Virginia hadn’t thought too much about Jackson’s brother.  Her mind had been nothing but a blender of Jackson and the posters about safe driving hung all over school.  And then it was that, that thing, that ghost of an animal. A memory of something more powerful. Something else.  Max had said if you believed in anything enough it would be real, but did she want that thing to be real? Did she want to believe in it?

Dalton was real.  And he was standing in the middle of her store.  Shame bloomed in her, part of her thought it cruel that she’d seen that part of his brother.  That she’s seen the ghost before his death. That she’d ran and ran and tried to stop it but failed. She pushed it away as best she could. 

“I’ll finish up here,” this was Max, face cheery. “Why don’t you go help him.” 

Slowly, Virginia lowered herself off the step stool.  Max seemed unchanged by the presence of Dalton in the store, but Virginia swore she felt the air in the shop charge like before a storm.  She dusted off her hands off and stepped over to him.   
“Hi.” 

His eyes snapped over to her.  There was a moment when his head didn’t follow and something strange rose up in her throat.  “Hi.” He towered over her. 

Past the lump in her chest she said, “Can I help you with anything?” 

Past her there was a bang, Max tossing books onto the floor from the self.  The store was a construction zone. Dalton wasn’t startled by the sound but his eyes quickly found Max, he straightened, or rather lifted his chin.  He was good looking enough. Some of the girls in the town thought different, the Summers boys were apparently some of the best looking. To be fair he was evenly built, with strong facial features and dirty blonde hair; but his eyes read apologetic when they landed on Max.  Something had been lost in that ocean blue color, they no longer reflected the sky. 

Virginia’s skin rippled with unease. 

The black creature wove it’s way through the shop, it’s long tail dragging in the dust. Jackson’s red truck drove past the store front. 

She blinked the car away and buried the memory. 

Dalton’s eyes traced back over to her, there was another bang. “I need a trunk.” 

Bang. 

“A trunk? Like a suitcase, or like a chest?” 

“Either is fine. As long as I can bury it.” 

“B-” She paused, the question hanging on her tongue.  Whatever peculiar thing that needed 

burying, it wasn’t her business, she needn’t know what.  “I think we might have a few, back here.” 

Leading Dalton through the shelves she did her best to steady her thoughts.  They raced with all things ghostly. It said, Jackson, Jackson, Jackson. Jackson. It said, “You’re not real.” But some sick part of her needed it to be. 

“Here.” 

Dalton’s eyes traced the small collection of leather and wood suitcases and bags.  For a beat he 

said nothing.  And Virginia almost blurted, “I’ve seen your brother on the road.” But his eyes weren’t really looking at the trunks, at least it didn’t appear that way. He crouched and ran his hand over the pieces.  It was a nice hand, square with artful fingers. He quirked his mouth. “This will work.” Swiftly he grasped the handle of a sturdy leather briefcase and stood. 

She made sure to not linger and turned and went to the counter at the back of the shop.  There she rang him up and took the cash he handed over.

“Keep it.” He said when she offered him his change. 

“Oh.” She said, retracting her hand.  

He didn’t acknowledge her much before turning and making his way out of the shop. It wasn’t until the ringing bell quieted that she was able to tear her eyes away from the entrance, and even longer before she was able to put the cash away and make her way back over to Max.  By this time he had an armful of books in hand. 

He smiled.   
She said, “Did you hear any of that?” 

“Would you give me a hand?” He nodded towards the pile of novels at his feet, Virginia bent and picked up a few, though not as many as Max.  “Yeah, I heard all of it.” 

“Don’t you think it was weird?” 

“Nah. He just wanted a suitcase, how is that weird?” Max said.  He started to wobble down the aisle, the books swayed at he struggled to carry them all.

“I don’t know.  He just seemed strange. Off.” Virginia shook her head and caught up with Max in a few strides. Removing a particularly unsteady book from his stack she said, “I know he should be sad, with everything that happened and all, but I didn’t think he would so, dangerous feeling.” 

Max clucked, “We all have our own plights.  I think being brooding and mysterious is his way of coping. And dangerous? What in all glory does that mean?”  Max was grinning at her. 

She searched his eyes for ridicule.  She didn’t know why she did that with him, every time she did she never found a hint of it in him.  Habit. She guessed. She’d grown up seeing it in her mother’s eyes, her older brother’s eyes. She was so used to it. Maybe that’s why she found Max so odd.  He was kind. With everything. From the dolls Ms. Evans had in the store to the old women that came in and did nothing but wander about and say rude things.  Casting her eyes to the floor she said, “I saw Jackson Summers’ ghost the other night.” 

Her heart was a hurricane in her chest. 

_ You say the most unbelievable things.  _ She heard her mother say. 

There was a long and unbearable pause.  Virginia looked up, Max had turned to face her, books rocking in his arms.

“I mean, I don’t know if it was- If it was actually him, I just saw his truck one night and something told me it was him and-and I don’t know, it could have been just a normal car.  But I don’t think it was, I mean, I don’t know, It was probably just my eyes playing tricks. I sound like a crazy person.” 

“Virginia.” 

“Yeah.” 

Max was often goofy, but he could also be serious.  His voice was soft. He shifted under the books, his eyes flicking across the floor, before he said anything else he dumped the contents of his arms onto the floorboards around him and took a step towards Virginia. “I believe you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone said that Dalton has "Will probably kill you one day" vibes, I guess I'm doing good at foreshadowing.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I've skipped forward a few chapters, because writers block is a bitch. But here is a summary of what's happened between then and now:  
> Virginia and Max proceeded to become good friend as people do with Max. But it was strange and warming to Virginia, now that she'd told him about that night and the creature. He invited her to a family dinner over the weekend, one Charity was also invited to for some odd reason. Maybe because she kept dropping into the shop. They both went. It was odd. And great. And Charity knows things about Virginia, she's mad about that...  
> Xavier went threw with his running away, thought I don't know if you can call it that as his mom gave him permission. He drove and drove and slept in his car and stayed in motel. He felt good, to be away from his family. And to be alone.   
> Charity's dreams have always been vaguely prophetic, but now they're getting violent. The girl she met at Max's party, and even the strange out-of towner and her are all there, in pain. They won't stop. Something is happening in this town. She saw that strange boy crash his car, and she's seen him seizing on the floor in pain. She needs to help him stop it.

The Dairy Queen on Main street wasn’t particularly full.  I never was really, other than fair nights or parades or perhaps a hot friday night.  But then again it never got packed. The wide front window faced the gravel parking lot.  The place was old, old old. It used to be a burger joint back in the 80’s, when the town was a bit bigger, but then it was converted to the chain restaurant it was now.  You could still see the remnants of the burger joint if you looked hard enough. The bottom of the menu behind the counter read “Al’s Milkshake and Burger Joint”, the front had a painted over logo; if the sun hit it just right you could catch glimpses of the animated burger underneath the layers of paint. 

Over all, the place had a dreamy nostalgic air to it. From the booth seats to the hanging lights and 

dreary bathroom you couldn’t help but feel you were in a more hick version of Grease.

Charity threw open the door and stepped into the cool air.  The day was open and wide. Greenhale wasn’t known for having particularly temperate summers but even today was one for the books.  She was thankful for her orange swimsuit and distressed shorts being so cool, and the fact that dairy queen served ice cream. She planned on ordering a milkshake, but first she had to take care of something. 

The episodes had only gotten worse, and more frequent.

They were all blood and screams and tears on the face of that girl she’d met at Max’s family dinner. 

And then there was him, the boy she scanned the booths and counter seats for now.  She’d seen this day before it happened. Yesterday. The back patio made for good sunbathing and an even better tan, Charity lay out, eyes closed warming in the sun and then it pressed up from the base of her spine.  It split through her eyes.

 

-

 

The day was spotted and jumped around like a skipping VCR.  There were bursts of light and then a glimpse of something, someone, more light, maybe a voice and then a shutter of sight.   
She was in the diner, she felt that part.  The vinyl seats that stuck to your bare legs when it got too hot. The smell of french fries and burgers, the taste of sugar and chocolate on your tongue.  Charity felt the stale air run its cool fingers through her hair. 

The boy sat before her, mouth angry, brows confused and his eyes, his eyes.  His eyes were strange and trusting and electric. Wonder twinkled just behind his lashes. 

And she knew. 

She had him. 

But there was something bigger unrolling before her, on the diner’s table between them, like a map, like a rug, like a life. She’d seen this boy in one of her episodes before, on a road in town, stared down by the animal that ran through Roosevelt’s dreams alike.  But this episode was of tomorrow, she could feel it in her gut. 

 

-

 

It unfolded itself in the air conditioned space of the diner. 

Charity found the boy, just like she predicted.  Smiling she pushed up her sunglasses, went to the counter to order a milkshake for herself and then made her way over to him.  He wore a wrinkled graphic tee and his dark curls were a bit flat. It was mid day and he appeared as if he’d already seen the face of god and she’d thrown him back to earth. 

“Well you look like a ruff day dressed in human clothes.” She’d made it to his booth. 

He looked up at her with a wondering glance.  His eyebrows were sharp and angled, brown eyes to match.  Charity herself tried to wrestle her face into a pleasant expression, if she was going to get what she wanted she ought to try and be nice to this stranger.    


“I’m Charity, Roosevelt.” 

“Xavier.” 

She smiled, “Can I sit? Thanks.” She sat before he could answer. Her sunglasses made a clang as she tossed them onto the surface of the table and got settled in.  When she finally met his gaze his eyes didn’t appear as if he wanted her to leave. Maybe it was because she had an air of mystery that intrigued him, or maybe it was because she was wearing a low cut one piece and shorts and he could she how nice her shoulders were rounded.  She didn’t think it was the ladder. 

“Look,” he started, slowly raising and pressing his hand onto the table, his manner was cautious.  “I’m not trying to start anything, I just want to get a burger and get out of here.”

Charity smiled. She hoped it showed she was friendly. “You’re not from a small town are you?  Everyone around here is in everyone else’s business, always.” She propped her arm onto the back of the seat. “Look around,” She waved a finger to the diner behind her, “everyone  _ here _ number one, knows  _ you’re _ here, and number two, knows your not from  _ here _ .” 

He listened, flicking his gaze to the expanse of the small restaurant.  Charity knew he’d finally noticed the small glances and quiet murmurs he’d been receiving since he walked into the place when his mouth pressed into a thin line.  He was quite attractive, almost foreign looking. Girlish, with his long curls and narrow eyes. “Where I am from people don’t really get into one another’s business.”  

“The city.” 

“Yeah.  How’d you know.”   
She shrugged, “Lucky guess.”  That part was true. The rest of the information she had on him was from other sources to say the least. There was a long pause of her front, as he scanned her face and she debated on how she was going to put this. She really should have put more thought into what she was going to say, but then again she never did, truth would suffice. “Do you know anything about a boy named Jackson Summers.”

There was that look.  The one she’d seen before, fear, confusion, wonder. “I-I, yeah, I’ve heard it somewhere.” 

“Mmh.  I bet you have.” Charity knew first hand whatever had happened to him recently, in this town, had something to do with the Summers boy.  “Not much happens around here. The only people that die are the elderly, and perhaps our dogs. A few weeks back, Jackson Summers, a boy my age and probably yours drove his car out to the woods.  For some reason, he swerved and tipped his car over.”    


Xavier swallowed. “Where is he now?” 

“Buried.  In the cemetery behind the church on Main.” Charity could see his brain working a million miles an hour, thinking thinking thinking.  She noticed the dark circles under his eyes. She wasn’t really aware of when his crash had happened but she knew from the sick look on his face that it must have been recently. 

“Why did he swerve?  Does anybody know?” 

“The sheriff said it was a deer.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice, “But I don’t believe that, and I don’t think you do either.”    


T here was a deathly stillness from Xavier.  He stared her down, trying to decide whether or not she knew, she did. And then, “How do you know that?” His voice matched her pitch. 

“Same way I know you swerved off the road last night.  Same reason I know you saw something 

that night.”  She had guess the time but from the look on his face she’d gotten right. “Xavier, I don’t know much about what happened.  To either Jackson, or you. But I know enough to understand that something, is going on. Something is trying to get our attention.”    


He shook his head.  Charity swore in her thoughts.  She’d lost him. The panic on his face took a hold.  “No.” He said leaning back and rasing his voice. “No.  I came her to get away from that. I came here to be alone.  Not to follow some rando around trying to solve this fucking-” He trailed off as a waiter was coming along with his food.  He set it down in front of him, a basket of fries and a burger. And then set Charity’s milkshake down along with it. 

Charity waited until he left. “I’ve seen you.”    


The fear that had been steering the expression on his face stilled, curiosity trickled in. 

“I’ve seen you here. Not just on that road, and not just with that creature.  But here and happy.  

Whatever you’re running to Xavier, this is where you find that.  I know. But you can’t find that if you don’t help me find out what’s going on here. Plus, your car isn’t working anyways and you have nowhere to stay.” 

“How-nevermind that. Look, I don’t know what’s happening with me, or with this goddamn town, I don’t.  But I believe in reality, and whatever I saw, whatever, I  _ felt.  _ That wasn't reality, and I’m not going to mess with it.” 

“Reality is a soggy paper bag get fucked,” She growled.  “You ripped a giant fucking hole in the  bottom of it the second you pulled your car onto the shoulder of that road.  Something is trying to get our attention. It tried to get Jackson’s and look what happened to him.” 

“Can’t you see that’s why I am trying to leave.” 

“Can’t  _ you  _ see that’s the exact opposite of what you should be doing.” She rolled her eyes and plucked a fry from Xavier’s basket, he didn’t have time to look offended before she dipped it in her milkshake.  “Look.” She took a big sigh. “I’ve been able to guess the grades on my report card since I was nine.  I’ve guess every single birthday present I’ve gotten since I was six. I saw the day my cat would die three weeks before it happened. I watched my dad decide to cheat on my mom while he was ten thousand miles away from me. My mom doesn’t think I know but I know more than she does. I knew you thought of Jackson Summers that night before even hearing his name, and I know what you saw before you even saw it.” 

“When did you have that dream?” He was catching up, but not quite.   


“Wasn’t a dream.” She ate another fry and dusted off her fingers. “That’s the strange part.  They are usually always dreams. But now they’re happening when I am awake. Now they happen almost everyday.  Do you know what they are?” She felt the shiver go down her spine. Charity new this world was a horrid place filled with nothing but pain and suffering, but the things she’d seen.  She didn’t know the world could be that awful. That a human could be in that much pain. 

He swallowed. She didn't know how, her expression was still in between bored and knowing but something in her gut that he knew what she'd seen. “Something bad.” 

“Yeah.  For all of us.  You. Me. And a girl you haven’t met yet.” 

The confusion was gone from his face.  “So the only way to stop it, is to listen to it.” 

“Read my mind.” She said.  Really she was here out of service to Xavier. “So what do you say?” 

“I say you’re crazy, and insane, and nosy and rude.” She smiled brightly at him, he was picking this conversation up very well. “And I don’t know how in the hell you know what happened.  Or what I thought.” 

“You’re very smart Xavier.” 

“Am good with people. I get them.”   
“I know.” 

“Do you know everything that is going to happen Charity?”    


“I know more than you.” 

He paused, picked up a fry dipped it in Charity’s milkshake and said, “Can you get me a place to stay?” 

She thought about it for a moment.  Her mother was dumb enough to be worried about there being a boy in the house with her, so that wasn’t going to work but she could think of a family kind enough to take him in. “Yeah.” 

“Then you have until my car gets fixed.  And then I am out, no matter what.” 

Charity’s smile grew. “Deal?” 

“Deal.” 

Charity spit on her hand and stuck it across the table. 

“What are you doing?” He said, looking at her hand. 

“It’s what they do in the movies, just do it with me.”    


H e did. Charity finished her milkshake, Xavier ate his burger. After washing their hands, mind you. Then she rattled her keys and took him to go get his stuff. 


	10. The End of Dalton Summers

Dalton’s favorite story was Peter Pan.

As a kid he could sharply remember him and his brother piled in blankets on his bed, his mother sitting in her chair, a frayed and yellowed book on her lap.  “Calm down boys, and listen.” Dalton and Jackson would seize their wrestling or arguing or laughing, usually laughing, and they would bundle themselves in the winter quilt and listen to their mothers cotton voice fill the room.  Their minds flooded with images so crisp Dalton thought he might be able to reach out and touch them.

Peter Pan said in order to fly you have to forget. 

And what a cruel thing that was for Dalton?  To be cursed to remember, forever be tied to 

the ground.  He was filled with moments now burdened with sorrow.  All those nights curled into his bed sheets, dark spots on his pillow case.  The time he stalked into the hall and saw his mother press her fingers to the picture on the wall, he couldn’t see her face, but he could see the way her shoulders shook.  He retreated back into his room, pressed his head against the cold door and tried not to let anyone hear him cry. 

  
Dalton walked through a golden wood.  The wood wasn’t golden but the leaves shimmered in the summer sun.  The edges of them were frosty with light. The ground beneath his feet was dry and discarded tree parts crunched under his shoes. 

His truck and the dead end road lurked behind him.  His truck bed was an open maw, the shovels and tools hanging out the tongues.   He stood in a small clearing. It wasn’t really a clearing more of an absence of trees around him.  The sky was painful and blue. His eyes glimmered with wet. 

Jackson would have put his hands on his face, thumbed his tears away and told him to think of happy things.  But he wasn’t there to wipe them from his cheeks. 

And what a cruel thing that was.     


“I miss-” 

And then he stopped himself.  He had a car full of shovels and a backpack full of candles and pictures. and he was determined to fly.  Oh how he wanted to fly. He wouldn’t have to feel like that after today.

He brought the sharpest looking shovel back down to the clearing, throwing it down on the dry grass.  He’d raided his father’s tool shed that afternoon after church, pushing past Jackson’s and his old bikes.  The shovels were under mobs of spider webs. He’d briefly let his mind wander. Between his car and the back shed he began to wonder if what he’d found on the internet would actually work.

But then he’d pushed it away. 

The website itself had said that in order to work you first needed to believe it would.  And Dalton knew it would, because he had no other option. 

In the hard dirt, and under the late evening su, in the sticky heat he dug a hold big enough for a small body.  Wiping the sweat from his brow he cast his shovel to the ground, it made a sound similar to the heart in his chest.  The sky above was beginning to turn navy around the edges and Dalton could feel a slight wind drift over his skin, cooling him. 

Then he went to his truck.  And from the mouth of the bed he grabbed his backpack,

Into the wood he went again.  The heat had begun to dissipate near the road but it clung to the trees where the wind couldn’t whisk it away like bark.  He crouched over his freshly turned hole before opening his backpack. The dirt was dark and damp. His fingernails were brown. 

In his backpack he had an envelope of photos, he pulled it out. 

 Stolen, collected, copied.  It didn’t matter. He had gathered a collection over the past few weeks.  All of them, Jackson and him. Mouths wide, teeth glinting like icebergs in winter.   There was them at the family vacation house.  Them on a hunting trip. Them at a football game.  As kids, playing in the treehouse.    


Dalton felt the tears burn as he flicked through the dusty images, some of them were old, blues and gold twisted through their hair and their fingers and their great big supernovas of laughter frozen in these photos. Some of them were crisp and more recent, months.  One had been taken by jackson just a few days before the accident.   
And he was gone.  

And Dalton hadn’t laughed since he’d woken late at night to blue and red flashing lights outside his window.  Cars were in wide berth of the drive that led to the Summers’ home. He rose from his bed, wondering what they wanted with them.  Greenhale was small and safe and secure and the police never appeared in your driveway in the dead of night. 

He remembered every detail of that night.  The chill of the stone walkway from his house to the police car.  The way his mother gathered her robe against the cold. “Where’s Jackson?” His father asked him, coming up from behind his son.     


Dalton shrugged. “He might have stayed the night at Zoe’s.”  Zoe was Jackson’s long term girlfriend, and when Dalton’s brother hadn’t come home that night he figured he had spent the night with  her, like he sometimes did. Like he sometimes did.    


Dalton could recall the sharp laugh that escaped him when Deputy Marsten told the Summers family that their son had been killed.   He remembered laughing, and laughing until that laugh had turned into tears. He hadn’t really know why he did that. He thought it was a joke at first, but the second time he laughed it wasn’t because he didn’t understand what he was being told but rather because he did.  

Mrs.  Summers gathered her son in her arms, though he could feel her shaking too. 

The deputy addressed his father then, “He was pronounced dead at the scene.  It was a spinal injury. We’re not sure, but the paramedics indicated that he’d been there for some time before a passerby discovered him.  We don’t know why the accident occurred, but we have a suspicion that it might have been a deer. I’m so sorry Tim, he was a good kid.”

“He was coming home.”  Dalton said into his mother’s chest. “He was supposed to come home.  He was supposed to come home!”   
His mother’s voice rattled around in her throat like dried leaves on pavement.  “Shh.”   
Weakly, Dalton added, “I was waiting for him.” 

Car accident.  Deer. Car accident.  Lights across his father’s creased and stone face.  Car accident. The deputy’s roughly parted hair. Car accident.  The sound of an empty house and nothing but his heart echoing in his ears.  Jackson. 

He could reach out and touch the memory like these photos.   They were a wound that wouldn’t close. They were clouds that never parted. 

Everyone knew by that monday.  And everywhere Dalton went eyes landed upon him, prying and wondering, pitting and remembering.  Remembering that Jackson was gone. That Dalton was alone. That, that boy, his brother, had died.     


And oh how it ate at Dalton. 

He went home and the photos of them all hung on the wall and his mother’s eyes were wet.  And his father would sit late at night and rub his hands over his face. And Dalton could open his door, cross the hall and press his fingers to his brothers old door. 

Greenhale was small.  And Greenhale knew. And Greenhale remembered. 

Oh how they always remember.  Constantly. It was in the way waitresses touched his shoulder and said, “I’m sorry.”  It was in the pastor’s sermon. The boy at the antique store gave him an endearing smile once, and Dalton had to suck in his breath and stop himself from tearing the place apart.  

And Jackson was gone yes, but Dalton felt as if he’d been carried along with him. 

“You know those card houses. You know? When you stack all those cards on top of each other to make a tower of nothing.” Dalton said to his therapist once, “that's what life is like.  You meet people and you add a card, and slowly the more you know them, the longer you know them and the deeper you know them the more and more cards are stacked on top of that card. Experiences, memories, other people, things.  Things and things and things. Until that card, the person is buried under so many other cards you can’t imagine what it would be like if you didn’t have the card. Or rather you don’t want to. But Jackson I guess was like the first card.  He was the very bottom one, he was the beginning of everything for me. I liked to think I was a brother more than anything. More than a son, or a football player, or a husband one day, I would always be a brother first and foremost. But now that he’s gone...it’s like I have nothing else to hold the rest of me up.  It’s just a pile of cards.” 

But now he could forget about the burnt card that lay among his pile of aces and spades.

He flicked the photo’s one by one into the hole, willing himself to forget these memories one by one. 

Then he rummaged through his pack from the rest of the things the website said he needed for this.  Candles, black, red, and white, all placed around the circle, he lit them each with a match he also produced from his backpack.  He liked the way they shimmered in the dull light.   
It said to do this at dusk, and on a waning moon.  And so he did.  

Next he removed a slip of paper with Jackson’s name written on it.  The writing was slanted and cramped and the end of the N was shaky and unsure.  He pressed his lips to the slip of paper and then sent it down into the hole. He then drenched it all in charcoal igniter he had also robbed his father of.     


Dalton took a moment beside the hole to take in the sharp smell of the liquid.  He watched it soak into the photos, all opens mouths and joyous moments. Dalton’s head squeezed together by Jackson’s arms.  A family Christmas photo. A birthday with cake all over Jackson’s face. 

He was gone.    


Dalton stood.  His jeans caked with fresh dirt. He held the candle above the hole cast his eyes to the sky and said, “ As you leave my life, I leave behind my pain and my remembrance of thee.  As you turn to dust, so does all my hurt. I burn thy name,” Dalton paused.  The candle shook, wax falling over the hole and his fingers; Dalton was reminded of his hand full of dirt, held above a grave.  His voice quivered like the candle in the slight breeze, “Jackson Summers, so it shall be cast out of my memory. As do I these images of thee, to further more banish these evocations of you.  Your memory is erased from my mind, fully and forever, no longer held by the constraints of time or mine own heart. I accept this made manifest, so shall it be.”

He dropped the candle. 

There was a heated whoosh, like the sound someone made when they were punched. And then, flames.  They danced across the photos, melting them as they curled like drying leaves. 

Finally, while in the hole burned the fire he pulled out his pocket knife  and a ribbon from his pocket. He flicked the blade out. Then Dalton cut a jagged line across his right palm.  He made sure not to make a sound as he did it. “Spirits of these teeming woods, please hear my prayer.” He wrapped the narrow ribbon around his hand once. “Please grant me the relief of this curse of mine.”  And then another. “Be rid me of these old haunts.” And then finally a third. He tied it in three knots. His blood sizzled on the flames. 

He had nothing else.  All his cards had fallen.

“Please.” 

The photos and the slip of paper muddied together in ash.   Blood beaded down his hand and soaked into the ground.  

Minutes he waited in the setting sun.  Minutes. 

The woods were still, very, very still.  Like something had stepped through the blowing forest and everything fell silent in its wake.  It was the sound of nature listening to something very interesting, something very powerful. 

And Dalton searched himself for changes.  Nothing. No, it was everything. All of it.  His hand clenched in his mothers night shirt, the shower’s steam as he lost everything on the bathroom floor.  Nights spent in anguish. Zoe’s pale eyes flicking over to him over a casket. His father’s rough embrace. Jackson’s smile.    


It was bright and burning and this hadn’t worked. 

He kicked the candles lining the hole inwards, splattering wax all over his shoes and the ground.  He sprayed dirt across the hole, the dirt over ash. And screamed.   Birds shot from the trees in a great plume, startled by his anger.  He didn’t care. The sky was a dusty lavender the shadows in the trees were getting longer.     


And Dalton couldn’t take it.

So he screamed and screamed.  Until his throat was bloodied and he had shaken the leaves in the trees.  He thought to himself, maybe now the universe would hear him. Now God had no choice but to listen to him.  He knelt and slammed his fist onto the earth in great spirals of grief and dark twisting want. Loose dirt sprayed up in a wall .  He did it again, he liked the way it made his fists splinter with sharp pain.  

“WORK! Fucking work! You said this would work!”   
He brought his fists down again.  He could have splintered the sky with this agony of his.  And boy did he try.  

“I can’t do this anymore.” Tears were streaming freely now, and he pressed his forehead to the cool earth and let them fall.   His fists gripped the edge of the hole, odd enough it appeared as if he was praying. “I was waiting for you. You said you were coming home, you said ‘I’ll see you at home’ and you aren’t here Jack.  You’re not! WHERE ARE YOU! You said ‘I’ll see you at home’. I’ll see you at home. I’ll see you at home. At home. Home. I’ll see you. You said that yourself.”  

He stayed there.  For a long while. Letting the wet on his face cement and taking great gasping breaths through his now tender throat.  The sky turned dark purple, and then orange, and then dark blue. 

“Either let me go, or come back.”  Dalton said still bowing against the fresh dirt, he wanted either.  Either would have been good. Anything, anything better than this. To grieve, he thought, was to want something back as much as you wished to never have had it at all. 

“Let me go.” 

He let his breath out and thought about never breathing in again.   He thought about drenching himself in the charcoal lighter and waking up in his brother’s truck bed, watching the stars wheel on by. 

Something moved in the woods. 

_ Snap! _

Dalton didn’t raise his head.  He did not care.  

Leaves rustled, twigs snapped.  Footsteps, softly through the underbrush.  They made their way over to him. They were curious and wandering.  Something scuffled directly across from him, like something sitting down on the earth.  

It sighed, gently, the sound of someone closing their eyes and grinning against a warming sun. 

Dalton looked up. 

There was nothing there. 

Nothing. 

Nothing.

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

Suddenly light shot through his vision.  His eyes were pinched with pain. He grit his teeth and groaned against the pain. 

And then it went away, quicker than it had appeared.

“Jackson!” He said, smiling.  He stood quickly and stepped over the hole, only glancing briefly over his shoulder at the peculiar hole.  “Jackson stop messin' with me! I know you’re there! Jack!” He felt weightless.  

He stood in the empty clearing, silent.  There was nothing there. He glanced around, there was a discarded shovel, his backpack, and a knife next to the hole. “What the-” His palm was burning.  He let out a grunt and examined the cut across his hand, it was scarlet and smeared with dirt.  

He must have been dreaming. 

It was getting dark. 

His mom would want him home for dinner soon but where was his brother? 

Another wave of the strange migraine slammed into him again.  There were flickers of light. People swarming around him, a brigade of black.  Jackson. Photos of the red truck upturned. No. Not that again. 

He remembered.

Dalton stumbled on the earth but caught himself before he fell.  “Jack.”

The forest around him collapsed. 

The world was dark.   He stood on an empty crowded road, no cars in either direction.  The trees were murder black against glittery skies. A truck approached.  It was red. It was going too fast. Too fast. The woods shivered to his right.  His stomach was weightless for a moment. A deer emerged. He remembered. No. “JACKSON!” he shouted.  He broke out into a run. “JACK! STOP!” 

The world slapped back to him.  Dalton tripped on an exposed root in the low light.  He tumbled backwards, unable to save himself this time.  His skull kissed earth. 

“Fuck!” He shouted for his throbbing head.  And then once again for whatever had just happened. 

Jackson was still dead. 

It hadn’t worked.  The world was bloody and raw.    
And then: “Dalton.” 

It sounded like—   


The only remaining Summers boy swiveled around to the direction his name came from.  He searched the trees, underbrush and then the sky for any sign of the source of his name.  He found nothing. “Fuck.” He granted himself another swear and pushed himself up. 

The world tilted once again. 

Police lights scattered along his vision, holes punched through by the flashes of blue and red. 

“ He was coming home.”  Dalton said into his mother’s chest. “He was supposed to come home.  He was supposed to come home!” He could  _ smell _ his mother’s perfume.   Rose. Her robe was a fleece material, it pricked his fingers.  His knuckles ached from squeezing so hard. 

His father put a hand against his shoulder, it was warm.  “Thank you Deputy Marsten, can I have a moment alone with my family?”

There was a pain in his chest, in his head, in his throat.  It was all over, it swallowed him whole. 

He was supposed to come home.     


He was coming home. 

“Dalt.”  It came from the trees. 

He was in the woods again.  He pressed his hands to his head and grunted.  There was a river in his skull, pounding. A giant.  Smashing against his forehead. Wanting. Starving. Screaming.  But it felt good. Oh how it felt relief from it.  

He could feel the noose around his neck start to loosen.    
“Dalt! Come find me Dalt!”  A voice called. 

Peter Pan said that in order to fly, you needed to forget.  Dalton was done with feeling like he was buried in the ground.  That the water from the shower head was too heavy to stand up under.  The world was coming down, caving in, crushing Dalton under its weight.  He wanted, no needed to forget.

So he ran.  He ran through the shallow woods.  Picking his way through the encroaching darkness as the sky faded to deep blue above.  He ran and he swore his brother’s voice was calling out to him. 

“Jackson! I’m here!” 

He forgot.  And he flew. 

Between the trees he tore around, chasing glimpses of his brother’s golden hair between 

the trees.  He felt he could reach up and grab the tops of the trees and pull them down.  Like he could tap the trunk of one and fell it in one simple touch. 

“Jackson.” He said, coming to a stop, chest rising and falling rapidly.  “Never leave me again.”    


And no one said anything but he swore he heard his answer in the way the trees shivered. 

“Fuck!” Dalton yelped again as a rod of pain shot through his head once more.  This time color flickered on the edges of his vision, all the colors of the rainbow and then some.  Colors with no name.

He toppled over.  His muscles seized and cramped.  He screamed again, and  swore he’d tore his vocal chords free.  The ground underneath was supple but the brushstrokes of a sunset knitted into the trees seared Dalton’s eyes.  Suddenly the world wheeled on his feet. Turning and dipping and curling in on itself. There were images. Dozen of them, flickering through his mind, over his eyes, between the trees.  They were colliding with each other. Rolling thunderclaps of memories all smashing into each other besides Dalton’s crumpled figure before burning to nothing onto the nettled ground. 

He could feel each and everyone of them as it returned to him and then turned to cinders inside his head.  It was all too much. An 11th birthday party. A funeral. A late winter fire. The death of his hamster when he was six.  Jackson in some but not all. 

“No.” Dalton thought.  Because he knew what was happening.  “No! NOT LIKE THAT!” 

But it was too late.

His life was a sweater and he could feel some force starting to tug on a frayed string.  His  whole life unraveled before him like a velvet rug. Nights spent in the tree house. Gathered on his bed listening to the story of Peter Pan.  Driving around with his brother. The girl at the shop. His mother pressing her hand to his bloody knee.  

Memories he didn’t even remember he had. 

A thunderstorm when he was four, hidden under his brother’s comforter as Jackson held him and told him to think of happy things.  What happy things? 

They flooded from his mind.  There and then gone. Lost to the void that was hidden somewhere in these woods.  They fell from his fingers like water from a cliff. 

Memories that he didn’t think anyone had. 

His father’s voice, but very far away, underwater.  He was floating. He was breathing, but not through his lungs.  And he was very small, and Jackson peered over the crib’s edge at him and said, “I am your brother.  Mommy says I have to take care of you, but you also have to take care of me.”

Who was Jackson again?   


His brother.  God, Dalt. Remember.  Jack. Jack. Jack. Jackson. Summers. 

Who was he?  Who was this person? 

The boy looked up, inspecting his face with his hands, his hands his arms.  His dirty pants. Where was he? What was he? 

Jackson. 

Summers. 

It was summer. 

The woods were hot. 

Hot.

Warm.

Sweat.  On his face. 

Tears. 

Tears?   


Was he crying?  No, but he had been.  The boy swallowed. His throat was sore. 

“I-” He started and then stopped. “Am.”    


Dalton. That was his name.  Or was it. It too tumbled over the cliff oh his brain.  He felt 

that memory burn to ash the moment he laid a finger upon it.  Each of these things now. Gone. 

Finally he remembered for one last time.  

“Jackson.”    


And that too burned to ash.  

He screamed, but no words came out, they disintegrated on his tongue.  He had, nothing. He flung his hands onto his face and cried out. He had no words.  They were all gone, ripped from him just like —like what?  There was something that had been there but was now gone.  

Who? What? When?

How. 

What are you talking about?

There was a...sound.  It was coming from the trees.   It was everywhere and nowhere at once, it was inside him.  And it screamed. It roared. 

Black flickered in the trees, was it the night or was it something else too.  Dalton moaned. The sound came again, and Dalton called back to it.    


No,  _ it _ , the golden creature with a human body crouched in the woods called back to it.  Dalton was a pile of ash in a shallow grave in a clearing in the woods.

He was nothing. 

Nothing. 

The world collapsed. 

Nothing.  

Nothing.  Nothing. Nothing.  Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.  Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.  Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.  Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.  Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.  Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.  Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.  Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.  Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.  Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.  Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.  Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.  Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.  Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.  Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.  Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.  Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.  Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.  Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.  Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.  Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.  Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.


End file.
